This is not exactly a great book, but then again, not exactly a bad book. It covers much about the industry of coffee and goes over the different regions that produce coffee. It describes what is and how to brew a perfect cup of coffee.

But I get a feeling of being rushed from one tidbit of information to the next. Just while I am almost within grasp of a certain concept or am about to form a picture of what it is trying to say it ends there without further detail. But it does repeat key information more than once throughout the book so you do walk away with greater knowledge than before.

If learning about coffee was compared to eating out, this book is best suited as either an appetizer or a desert. Appetizer to whet and get your brain ready to learn more about coffee, or as a desert, to catch up on and review over learned knowledge.

I guess that's why it is called "Coffee Basics" after all.

"A Perfect Cup" is a better selection in that it contains more information and better elaboration although that book is slightly dated being published in 1994. But coffee has been around way before 1994 so does it really matter?

This book gives a good basic understanding of what coffee is all about. I especially like the specificity of information about coffees from different areas in the Regional Character chapter. For example, discussing Costa Rica's two best growing areas and how the coffees differ. I also found the opinions of which coffees are worthy of their price helpful. I read the Perfect Cup first and am glad I did because it was a good coffee overview for me. Coffee Basics was a great second book for me because I was looking for more specific information about coffees of each area. If I hadn't read Perfect Cup first I think the break down of info. on each type of coffee/regional character would have been information overload for me. If you are new or relatively new to the coffee world and are excited about learning more and more about the subtlties and nuiances present in that cup, I highly recommend you read this book.

Great introduction to coffee - how to brew a great cup, a little bit about the industry, the different growing regions, how to buy good coffee, how to taste coffee, information about how coffee is processed. Not too complicated, easy and interesting reading. I definitely recommend this one if you're looking to learn the basics.

This book was o.k., but it is basically for someone who doesn't know anything. The word "Fast" in the title was also misleading. That's really the only reason I bought it, because I thought it would give some other facts and instructions other than the old-fashioned "go to the court house", "haggle with the clerk", "write to some records office somewhere using snail mail" stuff. It's just a little outdated, though that is not unusual for todays fast-moving technological pace. There were a few informative points and references, but generally I'd say it is very basic. For those who are just now needing to learn the basics, it's a good place to start. For those who already know a thing or two, I doubt it would help all that much.

This book has much solid advice from what appears to be
an experienced private detective. The writing is clear and
there are helpful lists of addresses and other information.

In fact, I was successful in a search where I'd failed before.

Some of the info was outdated or not true (for example, Texas
universities will not confirm enrollment via a phone call), but this is nitpicking.

There are MANY books out there on finding people and/or getting information on them. "Find anyone fast" is by far one of the most superior books out there. As an experienced investigator it still provides me with invaluable leads and resources!

The first chapter gives you 'case studies'. Invaluable to anyone just starting out in this field or looking for someone. Understanding how people are found is easy when you see the different twists and turns it takes. This is no movie where finding people is easy and glamorous.

Johnson and Knox also provide information on using the internet to find people (of course one of the easiest and free ways to do it), performing adoption related searches with ease (they provide the necessary places to check and how to do it) , military searches (I also recommend getting the book "How to locate anyone who is or has been in the military" also available on Amazon.com), and they also provide a very valuable section: Solving difficult cases...something I haven't seen in very many books on this subject!

You also get a great resource: every state address and phone number for all sorts of informaiton...you need this information! And they provide it in a very easy and comprehensive manner. There is also federal resources and civillian resources in this appendix as well.

You are also taught how to do a FOIA or Freedom of information act request letter, get a data sheet so you can organize your investigation and more!

Get the book, you will not regret the small investment you'll make in it!

Highly Recommended.
This book is one of the best books ever written on the Nature and Aims of History. This along with his "Principles of History" should give most readers all they need to know about the how and why of history.
The book is extremely easy to read; harder to understand. Some criticisms of the book are not up to the mark, as for example complaints that Collingwood used Greek and Latin phrases in the book, and not everyone understands them. Most of the Greek and Latin are very easy to understand, any good comprehensive foreign phrase dictionary will readily yield them. In fact everyone at the Oxford of Collingwood's day, and nearly everyone who considered themselves a philosopher at that time, could read Latin, and most of them Greek. Don't complain because Kant wrote in German (and Latin and Greek), and that Collingwood writes British English (and Latin and Greek). His style is beautiful, the thoughts expressed profound.
One does not get Collingwood's complete philosophy in this book, and indeed, parts of it cannot be understood without reading his other works. I think particularly of his famous doctrine of "re-enactment" of past thought, which is best understood in the light of the chapters on language presented in his "Principles of Art" (Oxford, 1938). Much invalid criticism has been written by those who have assumed this meant some kind of mental telepathy or intuition.
This book, and everything Collingwood has written, will amply repay the thinking reader. He may, in fact, soon find himself armed with new philosophical ideas with which to think about the world.

R. G. Collingwood's The Idea of History would be more correctly classified as a work of philosophy than a work of history, as the primary goal of the work is to present Collingwood's philosophical conception of the nature of history. In terms of methodology, Collingwood's book can be divided into two main sections.
Parts I-IV are more historical as Collingwood traces the development of the practice of history. It begins with its Greco-Roman roots, examines the influence of Christianity, and moves on toward the development of modern scientific history, and finally finishes by examining the concept of history up to the then-present day. Throughout this first portion Collingwood does not directly present his philosophy, leaving it to the reader to infer it from his critiques of other historians. Part V is where Collingwood finally lays out his entire philosophy of history, fully elaborating what he only partially revealed in parts I-IV.

A suberb book, one that will change the way you think. Collingwood's central thesis is an explanation of why history has always been regarded as the poor relation of the other sciences, and often not as a serious science at all. The reason for this, he says, is that the methodology and high status given to the natural sciences since the 18 and 19th centuries has been used as an analogy -a false one- for the study of history. However,history is not a series of events in the past, but rather the recreation of events in the mind of the historian in the here and now. An event consists of an outside (what happened) and an inside (why it happened, or what was in the mind of the actant to cause the action) History is thus the history of thought. This does not mean that history is just 'made up' by the historian. Those historians who amass a wealth of statistical evidence regarding an event or a period without trying to understand the thoughts or consciousness involved are only doing half their job (again they are under the influence of natural science) and only studying the outside of the action. What's missing in this kind of positivist approach is an exploration of the inside of the event. Collingwood writes like a dream. His style is a model of clarity, precision and concision. This is the kind of book that has you thinking about each sentence for a few minutes before reading the next one. Not exactly a page turner then,but endlessly fascinating and intriguing. The excitement lies in watching and following an incredible mind think out a totally original approach to the relationship between history, philosophy and thought itself. Highly recommended.

It was ok but was not my favorite...

There are a few versions of the Three Theban Plays out there for you to buy, but this is the one I most highly recommend. And it all comes down to a key word: translation.

I really like the work that Robert Fagles does on his translations. They are easy to read, fluid, and still manage to be poetic. There's a lot of work put into these pages, and it shows.

For work or for pleasure, The Three Theban Plays is an important part of dramatic history that everyone should read. If you're reading it, read it the best way that you can. Get this translation, and get it now.

I just saw the 1957 film of Oedipus Rex. Wo - ow. What a story.
And this translation by Robert Fagles is extremely good. Sophocles' drama is so simple, and so perfect, that it will probably never be forgotten! This is the ancestor to Hollywood - from 2500 years ago. THRILL to the dramatic exposition of Oedipus' unknowing sins! LAUGH at the gorgeous double-entendres in every second line! SHUDDER at the scene where Oedipus and Jocasta think they have the prophecy licked, and laugh at the gods!

This is fine drama, no mistake. I have not yet read the other two Theban plays in this volume, but I'm sure they're great too.

Oh by the way: Australian readers take note. The cover of the Aussie edition has no fewer than EIGHT typing and setting errors! "Robert Eagles??" "Thebian Plays??" I see from Amazon that the American edition is corrected. But Australian readers should take note. I don't know, maybe someone accidentally submitted a draft?
To make sure you have the right edition, read the spine. The stuffed-up version says "THEBIAN PLAYS"...ooer.

This readable translation was originally published in 1896 (not 1967) and there are two very fine and more recent translations of this book by T.M. Knox and H.B. Nisbet (with slightly different titles).

The book is a fascinating encyclopaedia of human life in all its social dimensions starting from our relation to a thing (property) and going on to relation between states in world history. Hegel's categorisation of social institutions contains some contraversial statements. But they all add to the fascination of reading the book.

Unfortunatelly Knox's translation does make it very difficult to comprehend some crucial passages, especially where Hegel's deals with the concept of Right in refined speculative terms. It also contains some basic mistakes which make a comparative reading of the English and the German text an anoying experience.

Some of the apparent disagreements below stem from the fact that different editions of this book share a review page. The reviewer who gave the date of 1967 was referring to the Knox translation (highly recommended). The "Great Books in Philosophy" edition is indeed based on a much older translation (by Dyde). The reviewer who wrote to "correct" the date was reviewing the Dyde version and was unaware that the earlier reviewer was talking about the Knox.

It is remarkable that this sensationalistic and inaccuate text has gained the respect and attention that it has amassed both among the scholarly and popular press alike. Knox's "research" is pure Freudian fantasy, and her thesis reliant upon hyperbole and a serious misreading of Wilde's work and more importantly (for the sake of her argument), his family dynamics. The success of this book is puzzling to me as a Wilde scholar; there are enough factual inaccuracies and flights of rhetorical fancy here to lead me to conclude that the educated, late-20th century reader, like his Victorian counterpart, loves a good scandal enough to ignore both logic and whatever overwhelming evidence may prove to the contrary. Scholarship this certainly is not; I recommend those curious about Wilde's life and work attend to Ellmann, Freedman and other scholarly Wilde critics and biographers for more factual and less trendy fare. As a Ph. D. candidate in Victorian Literature and long-time Wildean scholar, I was surprised and disappointed with both Knox's premise and her text.

I'm a graduate student studying Wilde, and really appreciated this thoughtful and challenging book. So much of the scholarship on the most interesting issues--gender, sexuality, identity--is original only in its jargonistic neologisms. This book is different: straightforward, solidly researched, beautifully written, and sympathetic to Wilde.

This is simply the best book on Oscar Wilde that I've ever read. A must read for Wilde scholars and an enjoyable read for Wilde enthusiasts.

...Now, I will admit he was quite young and inexperienced as a writer when he wrote the preposterously titled tome, however, there were times when I wanted to throw him and his book over the side and get on with better reading material. Being curious though, I stuck it out though his many man-made and nature caused disasters some of which could have been avoided it seems to this armchair reader if he'd have laid off the hootch he was addicted to...fresh water would have been more in order instead of so many whiskey and beer bottles cluttering up the larder. His answer to most situations was to stroll down to the locker and pour a shot or two and light up. How many times can one screw up on a trip like this and then write shamelessly about it? Enough to sell a lot of copies I guess and keep us on the edge of our bunks wondering why in the hell he's swimming alongside his 32' ketch in the middle of the ocean with apparently no lifeline tied around him. God forbid how anybody with so little common sense but plenty of guts should make such an arduous journey so ill prepared for the worst and carrying old sails to boot...Robin being an example of both somewhat. Anyway, friends of the sea, it's a compelling book if for no other reason than to experience his many perils and his solutions to innumerable screw ups. Yeah, I liked it but for perverse reasons I suppose since I can play at being a superior know-it-all sailor after cringing through page after page of calamities I WOULD HAVE AVOIDED. Now it's on to his next adventure. Keep it up Robin, old boy or man as the case may be...

A good and easy read by Robin Knox-Johnson who now helps manage the Golden Globe race of today. (2003; see Brad VanLiew's brilliant success in the Class 2 fleet in the news)
Readers should also include Bernard Moitessier's 'The Long Way' book of the same 1968 race. It is intensely interesting that where one flourished, the appointed 'winner' suffered a long and arduous ordeal. Knox-Johnson describes his exhausted stop in Australia and time at anchor in this book, yet accepted the trophy. Moitessier was far ahead off the South American coast when he took a right and continued on half way around the globe again to rest free of the commercialization the media had put upon the event. Bernard had reached the highest levels of thought and global mindedness, while Robin had been reduced to survival mode and raw instinct. Can you call the "Winner" of this non-stop circumnavigation? These two accounts of the same race cover the range of human limits and ethics and should be bundled together as a set.

The reader enters the inner workings of the mind of a great sailor and one of the most self sufficient individuals you will ever read about. The book is as enjoyable as "The Old Man and the Sea" and should be kept aboard every small yacht that sails the seas. The true adventure of R. Knox-Johnston's self sail around the world. The first man to do so non-stop and unassisted. It is a great reading and learning experience. A great place to start if you want to learn about sailing, the sea,nature, courage and fortitude.

This book has ok pictures but not that many drink recipes. Get another book that has more substance and less "style," because there simply aren't that many exciting drinks in here. If you don't know how to make a screwdriver without a recipe, I suggest you get a life.

I bought this as a gift and it was one of those "basics but nothing new". It was interesting to see the ingredients of some of the oldies, but there were no goodies in this one.

For the starter, I recommend. Otherwise, skip it.

Walking past the bookstore the other day I thought I could hear the faint sounds of a party coming from inside. It struck me as odd, so I entered the store, wondering where this was sound was coming from. After wandering up and down the isles, I discovered the sound was coming from the bartending section. Silly me, where else would such sounds be coming from!! Now I was really intrigued, I just had to find out where this was coming from. I opened several books before I found the object of my quest, Sex on the Beach and other Wild Drinks. Now I'm not saying your book with play music, but if you are looking to improve your next party this is a great place to start. From the graphic on the cover, to the colorful pages this book screams fun!! With such classics as the Long Island Ice Tea to such trendy drinks as Surfer on Acid and the Brain Eraser is sure quench your insatiable appetite for refreshment. Whether you're just looking to improve you're your night out at the club, or looking to be the star of your next frat party, this book is a must have!! So mix yourself a Woo Woo shooter, and hop aboard the party train!!

"Hitler's Italian Allies" by MacGregor Knox. Subtitled, "Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime and the War of 1940-1943." Cambridge University Press, 2000

I am sorry to say that the prose in this book is absolutely turgid. Swelled up. Remember grammar school, where you were taught about a simple declarative sentence? The book's author, Professor MacGregor Knox, would not (could not?) stop with one thought or one idea per sentence. He swelled up each sentence, such as,

"Hitler's ensuing visit to Rome, Naples, and Florence in May 1938 therefore did not
produce the military alliance that the Germans offered and at which Mussolini still aimed."
Page 13.

and: "Fear of offending constituted interests was characteristic of the war effort as a whole." P. 35.

As I attempted to read this book, I found myself parsing or mentally diagramming the more complex sentences.
Page 53: " Machines were low on the army's scale of priorities, and the machines it commissioned were correspondingly inadequate". To what does the pronoun "it" refer? You have to read and then re-read, to see that it is not back to priorities nor is it back to machines, but refers back to the army.

The book simply does not flow. Then, the author, not content with the thoughts in a single long sentence, often begins the next sentence with, "And..." and adds even more.

When I was working on my MA in History, we were required to read books on how to write History. For example, there is Barbara Tuchman's "Practicing History". In one of that book's essays, Ms. Tuchman makes the point that good History should be good literature, well written with skill. The book, "Hitler's Italian Allies", fails, in my opinion, to be good literature.

That the Italian Army does not have a good reputation for military valor, honor or even competenece is no suprise. After all this was an army that lost to Ethiopia at the battle of Adua. And never has this army been less successful than during the Second World War. Mussolini could not beat France after it had been defeated by Germany. He nearly lost to Greece before the Germans helpfully intervened. From its cowardly attack on France at the moment of her defeat to the cowardly evacuation of its elite from Rome before the Nazis handily occupied half of Italy, the Italian military effort was one of shame, incompetence, dogmatism and fatuousness.

Knox's book provides a succinct account of an army that failed almost every conceivable measure. There are exceptions of course; the Italians had some good intelligence measures and some of them occasionally fought hard-fought battles. What went wrong? Few will disagree with Knox that Italy was poor, had limited resources, that Mussolini's leadership was disatrous. But Knox puts special emphasis on Italy's military culture. Looking at area by area, Knox starts with politics and industry. War industries were inefficient and bureaucratically complex. Overall tax yields actually decreased 20% in the three years of the war, and draft deferrments allowed people to stay in college until they were 26. The Italian state gave monopoly support to industries which made "perhaps the worst monoplane fighter of the Second World War." In machinery the Italian Army, despite 30 years of desert warfare in Africa, could not produce proper compasses for their desert trucks. In emphasizing the propaganda value of numbers, Mussolini and the army created a logistical nightmare of insufficently motorized divisions. The navy foolishly decided that it did not need aircraft carriers until it was too late, nor did they understand the value of torpedo bombers, while innovative research on radar stayed in the lab until it was also too late. The air force leadership failed to demand proper high-octane fuels and many of their planes had to run on castor oil.

Strategically the Italian military failed to recognize the full economic weight of the Allies. They failed to appreciate the coming of Barbarossa or the supreme ideological importance it had for the Nazis. Mussolini dissipated Italian forces on half a dozen fronts. By contrast much of the army and navy were unhelpfully passive and unimiginative, moving with little daring or even proper plans. Military operations were slow, with poor coordination, over-complex structures and officer heavy staffs that all made for poor mobility. Commanders badgered their subordinates with obsessively and unhelpfully detailed orders, while buck-passing was the order of the day. Promotion was slow and unmeritocratic, and three were so few motorized vehicles soldiers often had to walk on foot. The supply services were uniquely unhelpful, working in such a centralized manner that division and corps commanders would sit still in fear that if they moved they would be cut off from their supplies. Italian codes were easily available to the allies, the Navy made insufficient preparations for fighting at Night, and when the German left the siege of Malta back to the Italians in 1942, the Maltese declared "We felt that our prayers had been answered. God has sent back the Italians."

Tactics were unhelpful. NCOs had no hope of promotion, officers had a caste mentality which separated them from their solidiers, and there was a corresponding failure of initiative and tactical rigidity. Ultimately Knox is right to say this was a failure which transcended Mussolini's own megalomania. If there is a flaw in this book Knox perhaps overstates Italy's lack of modernity and lack of civic cohesion. Greece and Russia were arguably even less modern. And while the Soviet Union was arguably more brutal than Italy, it also faced in 1941 an infinitely more severe challenge than Italy. And besides brutality, as Nicholas II and Mussolini himself would learn at their cost, is not everything. Nothing so clearly represented the emptiness of his claims to modernize Italy than his failure to change an army that was the very opposite of a meritocracy. This was an elite that combined an unusual lack of scruple with an unusual lack of competence.

In MacGregor Knox's Hitler's Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, And The War Of 1940-1943, the military buff and the student of World War II military history is provided an informative descriptive history and analysis of why the Italian Fascist regime was so basically ineffectual in conducting the war. Author MacGregor Knox offers an innovative analytical cross section of the Italian war effort in a broad spectrum of perspectives, the ineptitude of Italian military leadership, and why the Italian armed forces dissolved prematurely and almost without resistance -- especially when compared with the diehard and suicidal resistance of German and Japanese armed forces in their respective theaters. Hitler's Italian Allies is an impressive, unique, and highly recommended contribution to World War II studies and reading lists.

This book is written in the same style that Jerry Knox rants on message boards accross the nation. His book reads just like his website, all the content filling up your screen contained on one page that scrolls and scrolls forever. He may have some information that is correct, but his contradictions and mindless chatter make reading this book, a chore.

Having researched the subject of enema and colonic therapy for many years, I have found that down through the ages there have been many articles,books, chapters, and comments written on the subjects of enema and colonic therapies, and this includes many writings during the century just ended. Most of these writings do a good job on the subject, especially on the mechanical and physical health aspects. But none cover all aspects like Knox does. He includes the additional and important aspects such as: The Psychology, The Pleasure, The Spiritual, and even Politcal aspects. To be truly informed about the subject,"Love Thine Enemas & Heal Thyself" is a must read. It informs the interested and open minded, and especially the user of enema and colonic therapies. (Some users feel some guilt or embarassment because the therapy often is accompanied by pleasant feelings. Although this book is primarily about the health aspects, after reading it, the reader will understand why a properly given enema/colonic can result in pleasure as well. The reader will realize that when this therapy is appropriately used, and properly given, one should not feel guilty over such feelings. This has to be "the comprehensive bible" on general enema and colonic use by a man with extensive clinical experience!) This is an opinion by a writer-novelist/researcher on the subject.

I wish that there was more info available before purchasing this book. I will say, I just love it when I can find a good book about washing out ones bowels whilst using old english references such as thine and thyself. Wherefore art thou enema bag? Wilst thou cleanse so deep that thine inner-child shall become immaculate once again. I shant refrain from thy love begat from healing my inner bowels and maintaining a sanitary baloon knot. Who amongst thee has experienced the dismay of a brown asterisk on thy undergarments, thus interrupting a midsummer night's dream? Fear not, Love thine and dare...to heal thyself.